No fans. Fake noise. Here’s what 2020 Giants baseball will sound like: pic.twitter.com/5MrSomgNlN
— KNBR (@KNBR) July 18, 2020
This will be baseball in 2020. A low murmuring that disappears into the background with your eyes closed, the hum of the refrigerator that you don’t hear anymore.
But with your eyes open, the illusion is broken. You look around and see emptiness, potential, seat after seat, an open canvas that is not being painted. Major League Baseball, following the lead of European soccer leagues, will come with a soundtrack this year.
The fans who are staunchly against it will not notice it by the second inning. The fans who are pro-noise … will not notice it by the second inning. What will be important is what the players think, as MLB is trying to recreate the game they have played all their lives for the players’ mindsets.
The Giants experimented with the soft buzzing for the first time in Friday night’s intrasquad matchup, and they seemed unbothered.
“Honestly, when I was out there I didn’t even really notice it,” Tony Watson, who made his first appearance of camp, said on Zoom. “I noticed it the half-inning, when [Jeff Samardzija] was pitching the bottom half. It sounded all positive. I don’t know if there’s negative crowd noise by any means.”
Yes, the Giants will have to work on piping in boos when the Dodgers (or any other team) are in town.
The Giants had tested out a different track earlier this week — not the one that came from Major League Baseball — and, “Let’s just say it didn’t hit all the right notes,” Gabe Kapler said. “We turned it off fairly quickly.”
One believed to be issued from MLB was used Friday, creating a baseball ambiance for a person who doesn’t look around, at least. When Conner Menez induced Rob Brantly to ground to first base, a roar went up. When lazy pop-ups were lifted or line-drives were blasted to the outfield, more cheers rang out. It was unclear what side — the Orange or Black — the theoretical fans were on; they appeared to be rooting for some action. (All was quiet after strikeouts.)
For the matchup, the Giants also were using batters’ walk-up music, infusing more noise and more regularity into the proceedings. The goal, then, is to make it feel like baseball, even if it doesn’t quite look like baseball.
“We also might play around with some music in the stadium,” Kapler said, and this will be an ongoing experiment. The manager will see what his players like. The TV producers will see what the fans like. If baseball can exist during a pandemic, so can a happy medium of background noise that doesn’t offend the purist.
Watson is a player, but he’s a fan, too. It certainly sounded as if he were speaking for many.
“It’s better than silence for sure,” the reliever said.
The Giants are pumping in crowd noise. (Crowds were a thing in the Before Time.) pic.twitter.com/7RjBnOinv3
— Mark W. Sanchez (@MarkWSanchez) July 18, 2020